How One Ball Pit Turned Strangers Into Friends [Video]

What you do if a giant sign above a street-side ball pit prompted you to dive in, take a seat, and make a friend?

You may consider befriending strangers to answer deep dark secrets in public as a completely abnormal act, but in this video, one group of people welcomed the chance to hop in a giant ball pit and fire away.

Created by SoulPancake, a “brain batter of art, culture, science, philosophy, spirituality, and humor,” this video chronicles pairs of strangers tasked to ask each other about their heros, love life, religion, and perhaps most importantly, create a secret handshake (that duh, isn’t so secret anymore).

SoulPancake seeks to open minds, challenge friends, and make people “feel damn good” with its articles and arsenal of videos (like the ever popular Kid President). Actor Rainn Wilson of NBC’s The Office, and his friends Joshua Homnick and Devon Gundry, founded the media company in 2008. SoulPancake’s website then launched in January of 2010. This video, which came out in January but is just recently picking up steam, pairs a marine with multiple sclerosis with a girl half her age, a young boy and and older woman with matching false teeth (what a weirdly cute moment), and others. Sharing love stories and revealing bucket lists bind the new friends even closer than they are sitting in the pit.

There’s something oddly heartwarming about watching people (who seemingly have little in common) ask life’s big questions in a sea of rainbow-colored plastic balls. It’s so much more climactic then sticking people on a park bench to chat about the same topics. Potentially our favorite line from the clip would be from one of the two middle-aged gentlemen: “This is our ball pit… we can talk about whoever we want to.” If only we all had ball pits at our disposal.